Fade Out (2 page)

Her eyes are puffy—I see this first. Not a good sign.

“Danielle,” she calls. “Come inside so we can talk before you go.”

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sunbathing.” Notice I’m flat-out ignoring the fact that she said I’m going anywhere. This is because I’m not. Going, that is. I’m staying right here.

“Sunbathing? It’s four thirty in the afternoon and you’re in the shade. You haven’t even started packing yet. Don’t tell me you’re out there waiting for Maya to call….”

Maya—she’s my best friend. Or she used to be. We met the second day in seventh grade: Fourth-period gym, she held my ankles for sit-ups, I held hers. She was from Willow Elementary and I was from Shanosha Elementary, but soon it was like we’d known each other forever, like her ankles were my ankles and mine were hers. We were inseparable. But ever since she moved an hour-and-a-half away to Poughkeepsie three months ago, she forgot about all that. She’s never online anymore and she never calls.

So what if I’m up on the roof waiting for her to call? Or for anyone to call. Even my older brother, Casey, who’s away at soccer camp—I wouldn’t want to talk to him anyway. If he called maybe I’d pick up and say thanks for leaving me here all by myself to rot, and then I’d hang up on him. But Mom doesn’t have to know all that.

“Come inside,” she says. “We need to talk.”

“Talk to me out here,” I say. “I can hear you just fine.”

“All right. If you won’t come inside…”

I wait.

She waits.

The mosquitoes hover.

It’s a battle of the wills and I win. It’s at this moment that she asks the dumbest question ever: “Dani, do you need help packing your socks?”

Socks! In summer! “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, really?”

Her voice tightens. “No.” But she doesn’t say what else it could be. She just says, “You should get packing. Your father’s on his way here.” Her face gets all crumply as she admits this.

Obviously she’s trying to keep from crying. It must be because she just talked to him on the phone. This happens every time he calls: She gets bright pink, her eyes go leaky, and then she holes up in her room.

She’s been like this ever since Dad left. Most of the time, like at the newspaper in town where she works, she’s a perfectly normal person you wouldn’t feel mortified to be seen with. But when she’s home with me, she’s this other person. She’s not
my mom anymore but a wobbly pink-headed impostor walking around blowing her nose and pretending she’s my mom. I don’t know how to act when she’s like this. It makes me say things maybe I shouldn’t.

Like now. She says, “Come inside, Dani. Please? Your dad’s almost here.”

And what I could say is
Okay
. I could cut her some slack, you know I should. But instead I say, “And that has to do with me because…”

But I’m allowed to be sarcastic. I’m at a “difficult” age, in a “difficult” situation, and you’re a liar if you think you wouldn’t milk it.

“Because I told you. He’s on his way to pick you up right now. You knew this was his weekend. Stop stalling.”

This is when the scene goes dark and the music gets loud and, I don’t know, thunder crashes in the sky over my head or something. This is when you’d see a close-up of a mouth and hear the scream.

Because I’ve been telling her and telling her that I’m
not going
. I’ve told her like twenty million times. I haven’t packed a single thing for the trip, and I’m sitting out here on the roof pretending to get a tan but really catching malaria from all
the mosquitoes and does this look like I’m going somewhere, does it?

They can’t make me go.

Someone will have to drag me kicking and screaming down the driveway, and if the kicking and the screaming don’t work, I’ll just do one of those nonviolent protests where you play dead so you’re as heavy as possible, like a sack of bricks.

I’ll make myself like bricks just how Gandhi used to do. At least, I think that was Gandhi, or maybe he was the guy who didn’t eat. Anyway, if I have to, I’ll pretend to be Gandhi, and who could possibly force me in my dad’s car then?

My mom ducks down to grab a tissue. Then her head pops back up, and that’s all I see of her, her head, bobbing there like a hot-pink balloon.

She bats her eyes to keep from crying, except all it does is make her nose drip more. She’s a wreck. Just listen to her:

“Danielle, you have to go.”
Sniffle.
“Even if it’s not what
I
want, you know the judge said…”
Sniffle.
“I know your dad moved in with that”—she stops herself—“with Cheryl, but that’s where he lives now.”
Sniffle.
“Dani, can’t you understand? You have to go. It’s
the law
….” (Here a loud, wet honk as she blows her nose.)

The way she’s talking makes me think that what she really wants is for me to
not
pack my socks, to not go.

Then she leaves the window and heads out of sight—I figure to lock herself in her room and soak her pillow. I can make fun of how often my mom cries, but that’s because I picked her. In the Cooper-Callanzano divorce of this past winter, let the record show that I chose my mom’s side.

Now that my mom has given up, now that no one cares and no one’s looking, it gets a little boring out here on the roof. Another truck drives by, doesn’t honk. I swat away one last mosquito and climb through the window back into my room.

I take a seat on my bed. My mom put my suitcase there—it’s open, empty, waiting for me to shove it full of stuff to take with me. I look at it, and I’ve lost all the bars on my cell phone, and no one’s calling anyway, and I ask myself the only question worth asking:

What would Rita Hayworth do?

Rita Hayworth was this old Hollywood movie star—all glamour and mystery like in those black-and-white movies people like to call “films.”

Most of my friends at school have no clue who she is. When they think of a big movie star they think of someone like Reese
Witherspoon. But if Reese and Rita Hayworth were in the same scene and the cameras were rolling you’d forget Reese was even there. And that’s not to dis Reese Witherspoon.

All I’m saying is Rita Hayworth was
something
. Say there was this movie and both Rita Hayworth and Reese Witherspoon were in it. Reese would say her lines and she’d be great like usual, but then it would be Rita Hayworth’s turn.

Rita Hayworth would toss her hair (red in real life, but in black-and-white it could be any color). She’d blink super slow, like she was underwater. Then she’d turn, finally, and settle her eyes on Reese. It would take a few seconds but feel like forever and you wouldn’t be able to stop staring. Then Rita Hayworth would say maybe one word, drawing it out, making it sound like the most beautiful word anyone could say, like, in any language, ever. The word could be “hi” or “mayonnaise,” it doesn’t matter. And before you know it, Rita Hayworth will have eaten Reese Witherspoon alive.

That’s why I think of her. Rita Hayworth wouldn’t let anyone push her around, not even Mom and Dad. She’d do what
she
wanted, and no sorrys after.

Rita Hayworth could hide her emotions down where you’d never find them. She’d make you think she didn’t care when,
really, she cared more than anything. And if someone told her to go someplace—because
it’s the law
and
the state of New York says so
—what she’d do is wait till you weren’t looking, and then she’d leave for someplace else.

So I decide to make things a little more difficult. Not for myself—for my dad.

Cue the daydream sequence: Dad’s car pulls in. He honks from the driveway because he doesn’t want to come into the house. He waits and waits and his car’s leaking oil and he’s all spazzy under the seat belt because he’s got that bad back—but I still don’t come out of the house. I never come out because I’m not home. It’s the first court-ordered visitation and I’m not here to go. That’ll show him.

Cut back to real life, and I’m still sitting in my bedroom. Dad hasn’t made his way here yet. What I have to do is find a way out before he does.

If this were a movie, I’d jump out the window. A good enough plan, I guess. But if this were an
old
movie—like from the 1940s before all that color, the kind of movie called a “film,” one where you’d find someone like Rita Hayworth—I wouldn’t even have to jump.

It’d be nighttime, of course, not 4:42 in the afternoon.
There’d be this killer bright light coming in from the window, but in it you’d see only half my face. It’s more cinematic that way. My hair’s dark—no other word to call it but brown—but in this movie it would be pitch-black. It would shine. And I wouldn’t be wearing shorts—I’d have on some long, sparkly dress. Oh—and heels like the spiky ones my mom keeps in the back of her closet even though they hurt her ankles and who knows why she still has them. Plus a hat. I’d have to wear a hat. Back then, girls always wore hats.

The room would be dark and you’d get a tight close-up of just my face. That’s when I’d do this whole series of expressions with my eyes.

You’d see fear.

Joy.

Rage.

Bliss.

Misery.

Passion.

Plus lots more stuff I don’t even know the words to.

Then I’d take a few steps out of frame and the shadows would swallow me. And no one would be able to find me after that.

But this is no movie and I’m just me, Dani Callanzano, not the kind of name you’d see on a marquee. It’s a summer afternoon in upstate New York and I’m thirteen-going-on-fourteen wearing plain shorts and a tank top and sneakers. I’ve got a cell phone with no bars, an empty suitcase on my bed, and a bug bite on my knee that I can’t stop scratching.

So I don’t jump out the window. I take the stairs and walk out the back door. I’m not about to let the scene fade out on me—not now, and not without a fight.

And for that, I’d like to thank Rita Hayworth.

2
You Didn’t See Me, I’m Not Here

I
head straight for the Little Art movie theater,
the only place worth going to in all of Shanosha, the upstate mountain town where I’m cursed to live.

The Little Art is just like it sounds—it’s little, so most of the time people forget it’s even there. And it’s arty, so when people do remember it’s there (like when they park their car in the lot because there’s nowhere else to park), they still don’t buy a ticket and go in. Hardly anyone does, which is just one more reason to like it, if you ask me.

Right now, the Little Art is showing a “Summer of Noir.” In noir movies, there’s always some kind of mystery. A bunch of people lie, and you have no idea who’s telling the truth. The bad guy isn’t always who you think he is—that’s one cool thing about noir. Another is that the movies are usually in black-and-white, filled with deep, dark shadows, so if you’re looking for somewhere to hide, try inside a movie theater when a film noir is playing.

I’m sneaking down the street when I hear my name. There’s a reason most noir films take place at night. You don’t see your hero walking around town in broad daylight saying
Hi
and
How’s your summer?
to all her neighbors. I knew I should have worn a hat.

Someone calls to me from Taco Juan’s, the ice-cream-slash-burrito place across from the Little Art. It’s Elissa, my old babysitter. She waves an arm at me through the take-out window. Even though she stopped babysitting me like an eternity ago, I still get to see a lot of her, thanks to her summer job scooping ice cream here in town.

Today she’s her usual self—super curly black hair held back so it doesn’t get in the hot fudge, a smear of pistachio on her cheek. And her smile, always with that sweet smile, like nothing could ever bring her down. She’s really killing my noir mood.

“Dani!” she says, all bubbly. “Want a sundae? On the house!”

Now that she’s seen me, I can’t just walk away. I give an imperceptible shake of my head, but I guess that isn’t enough because Elissa’s still talking out the window. “You’re not going to see another movie, are you?” she asks. “Wouldn’t you rather have some ice cream?”

I stop beside the take-out window, keeping an eye out for any cars passing in the street. “I’m not here,” I hiss. “I’m not going to the movies.”

She cocks her head, beyond confused. “Okay… Then where are you going?”

“To the movies,” I explain in a whisper, “except
not
.”

Her smile falters for a sec. She blinks. Then she brings out the smile again, even larger this time, and says, “Jimmies and hot fudge?”

Any other day, I’d take the sundae, but this isn’t any other day. My world is crashing down around me. Not even ice cream will save me now. Do you hear me, people? This is
serious
.

But I can’t stand here and explain this to Elissa. I put a finger to my lips in the universal symbol for “zip it” and just hope, if my mom or dad comes by, that Elissa doesn’t crack under the pressure.

What I have to do is get across the street and into that theater before anyone else spots me. I have to—

I turn and crash into a girl who’s carrying half the town’s public library in her arms. She fumbles but somehow manages to drop only one book. On my foot.

“Sorry, Dani,” she says.

I pick it up for her—it’s some sparkly-looking book about, wow, is that a unicorn? “What in the world are you reading?” I say.

“Oh, nothing,” she says, turning it over so I can’t see the cover.

The girl is Taylor. She’s in my grade at school. We used to be better friends than we are. If you go way back into the distant reaches of time you’d find Taylor and me, age five or six, getting busted for mixing our Play-Doh in kindergarten. (She had red, I had yellow, we made orange, and BFF from there.) Except, once you hit junior high, you tend to lose sight of Play-Doh.

In junior high what happens is you make a new friend (Maya) and your old friend’s still hung up on immature things (like unicorns) and you have absolutely nothing in common anymore, so soon there’s no point in even saying hi in the halls.